Monday, March 9, 2009

Bring on the neo-Hooverites

Jon Chait has a compelling takedown of neo-Hooverism, which he disguises as a book review. Here's his take on Amity Schlaes, hero of this nascent movement:
The experience of reading The Forgotten Man is more like talking to an old person who lived through the Depression than it is like reading an actual history of the Depression.
Look, I'm not completely positive that all of Obama's policies will fix the economy. I think that the stimulus will help greatly, I think that getting healthcare done will help greatly, and I think Obama's budget sets some good long-term priorities and will help greatly. I suppose we'll find out soon enough. But it takes a certain level of detachment from reality to just assume that, coming off a disastrous war and economic crisis under your watch that nothing is wrong with your philosophy. It's even crazier to assume that the answer lies in an unpopular and discredited line of reasoning from a century ago. And it would be one thing if there had been vigorous, open, honest debate among conservatives about what went wrong and then they decided they weren't to blame. But instead Rush Limbaugh just cuts off debate and the zombified GOP moves in place.

Really, today's GOP is looking more and more like an odd piece of performance art rather than a viable political institution.

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.